Roast pork belly and young tempranillo

This week’s match of the week isn’t a new discovery - roast meat with red wine isn’t exactly rocket science - but the fact that it was pork that was going so well with tempranillo rather than the usual lamb or beef intrigued me.

The wine isn’t labelled as rioja although both it and the winemaker Gonzalo Gonzalo Grijalba come from the region. It was named as a result of the banks turning him down for a loan. (Gran cerdo loosely translates as fat pig!)

It’s a really vibrant, swiggable red which went really well with a biiig and very delicious plateful of fennel salted pork belly with all the sides I had at The Old Market Assembly in Bristol at the weekend.

You can buy it from Buon Vino for £9.95 a bottle or from Roberson for £9.99 or £53.95 a case of six (£8.99 a bottle) which is remarkably good value for an organic wine. It would be great with a barbecue too.

For other suggestions with roast pork and other Sunday roasts see

A quick guide to wine pairings with a Sunday roast

Chocolate layer cake and single vineyard rioja

I’ve always been sceptical about the combination of red wine and chocolate but I came across one in Moscow last week that was simply sensational

I was in there to present a talk on food and wine pairing for the annual Spanish Wine Academy Rioja producer Ramon Bilbao organises for the sommeliers there. It was an impressive event with a high turnout - Russian sommeliers are really keen to learn more about wine.

In the evening we had a dinner at a very smart restaurant called Selection where the chef Ramon Bilbao had brought with them, Ignacio Echapresto of Venta Moncalvillo, cooked a five course meal which we matched with a range of contemporary Spanish wines. The red in question was the 2014 vintage of one of Ramon Bilbao’s top wines called Mirto, a beautifully poised, ripe modern rioja that you’d be more inclined to pair with a main course

The dessert, a light but intensely flavoured chocolate cake was sandwiched with ganache and (I think) a touch of red fruit jelly which chimed in beautifully with the Mirto. Generally a wine needs to be sweeter than a dessert to work but this was just perfect.

I still wouldn’t open a red of this quality just to drink with dessert but if you’re drinking a similar wine with the main course you could happily save a sip for a chocolate cake or even a square of dark chocolate.

Disclosure: I was paid by Ramon Bilbao to present the wines (but not asked to write about them.)

Middle eastern-style lamb with grilled vegetables and a natural red wine

We all know that roast lamb is a great pairing with red wines but the assumption is often that it’s prepared in a classic French way so it was interesting to note over the weekend that if you give it a middle-eastern spin exactly the same applies

The dish was a fantastic plateful of food cooked by a chef friend of mine Chris Wicks: rare-roasted rack of lamb with a herby couscous salad, grilled vegetables and a yoghurt and tahini dip - all generously scattered with pomegranate seeds.

We drank a couple of reds with it - one of my favourite natural reds, the 2013 La Poudre d’Escampette, a vibrant blend of grenache and carignan from Alain Castex formerly of Le Casot de Mailloles in the Roussillon which I remember buying at a wine fair in France for about €16 or €17, The 2015 which is now sold under the Les Vins de Cabanon label is selling for roughly double that (it’s currently on offer at Buonvino for £28.80 although a company called Gourmet Hunters appears to be selling the 2016 for £19.10. (I’m not sure he has access to the same fruit though since his Casot de Mailloles days but the point is not so much the specific wine but the fact that this vibrant natural style of red really suits this kind of food, picking up in particular on the bright crunchiness of the pomegranate seeds.)

We also drank a magnum of 2005 rioja which paired well with the dish as rioja pretty well always does with lamb but I preferred the lighter wine.

See also

Wine & lamb: my 5 favourite pairings

Young red rioja and menestra (Spanish vegetable stew)

Of all the great food and wine pairings I experienced in Rioja last week this was the most unexpected.

We were being taught how to make one of my favourite Spanish dishes menestra at Bodegas Beronia - a complicated vegetable stew that involves practically every seasonal local vegetable including cardoons, chard, cauliflower, onions, peas and artichokes (though each cook has his/her own version)

You’d think the last thing that would go with it - and particularly the artichokes - would be their vividly fruity 2010 special production Rioja tempranillo but quite the contrary. it just sang with the mildly flavoured dish.

I think it was probably a combination of things - the acidity of the wine* and the fact that it was quite dry together with the fact that the vegetables had been cooked for so long (2-3 hours) and that more tricky-to-match vegetables had lost their aggressive edge. And the oil. Always in Spain the olive oil ....

* the fact that it came from the 2010 vintage may have helped too - not quite as lush a vintage as the 2009.